Bob stared at the page for a minute. The discovery of a dirty cop always pissed him off, but the thought that it could be someone he would have trusted to watch his back shook him profoundly. The motive was usually money, and it invariably involved drugs, prostitution, or white-collar crime. But this? Why would Parker be involved in the deaths of two professors linked to Muslims?
“Good work, Jack. I’ll handle it from here.”
Jack turned to leave. Bob picked up the phone.
><><><
Thirty minutes later, McIntosh and Gaston were sitting at a table with a very uneasy Adam Parker in a bare conference room. Gaston had convinced the Chief Superintendent that having Parker arrested in the middle of the department and sent down for interrogation would be bad for company morale.
“Adam, thanks for coming down,” said McIntosh.
“What’s this all about?” asked Parker, looking nervously at the Chief Superintendent.
“I’m going to shoot straight with you, Adam. You’ve served the department with distinction. Bob and I have both been very pleased with you, but today you got tangled up in the investigation of a non-existent entity called the Society for the Assimilation of Turkish Immigrants.”
The color began to drain from Adam’s face.
“Do you mind telling me why in the hell you posted the name of this bogus organization to a personal blog, and why you’re so interested in monitoring the communications of the team investigating the murder of Prof. O’Brien?”
Adam pursed his lips and then took a half-hearted stab at a defense.
“Sir, my job is to ensure the security and integrity of communications, so obviously everything they do is passing through my system.”
McIntosh didn’t even respond. He just sat there waiting for an answer to his question. Parker fidgeted in his chair for a moment and then continued. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss the matter with you, sir.”
“Not at liberty!” exploded McIntosh. “Son, you’d better find the liberty and loosen your tongue. Whether you realize it or not, I’m doing you a favor here, but if you don’t start talking I’ll have internal affairs give your life a colonoscopy that leaves you with a funny walk for the rest of your life. Your career is finished. The only thing that changes now is how many years you spend deprived of female company.”
“Sir, if you can allow me to make a phone call, I’ll see if I can secure authorization to disclose the details of the case.”
“A phone call? Bullshit!” yelled McIntosh, understanding the implications immediately. “Are you telling me that you are working for one of our own intelligence agencies?”
“I’m not telling you anything, sir. I don’t have the authorization to do so.”
“I’m your superior officer. I’m ordering you to tell me what the hell is going on. Who is the bastard that outranks me here? Who are you going to call?”
“I can’t say, sir.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t, sir.”
McIntosh sat there fuming. Bob came to his rescue.
“Here, Parker,” he said, sliding his phone across the table. “Make your call.”
“I have to use my own phone, sir,” he said apologetically. “Otherwise, no one will answer.”
Bob gave McIntosh a nod, twisting his head slightly and blinking both eyes as if to say, let’s see where this goes. McIntosh thought about it for a moment.
“Do you have Jack tracing all of this?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, you can make your call, but put it on speaker.”
Parker pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and hit the speed dial number. A voice on the other end answered on the fourth ring.
“Code in please.”
“Hornblower,” said Parker.
“And, the grounds for your request?”
“Internal sting,” said Parker simply.
“Please hold.”
McIntosh looked at Bob in surprise.
The damn spooks have recruited one of our men
. They all sat there in an uncomfortable silence until the voice came back on the line.
“Request denied,” the voice said simply. The line went dead.
Gaston took some consolation from the look of astonishment that came over Parker’s face. Adam turned to the Chief Superintendent and said, “I’m sorry, sir. There must be a mix-up. I’m sure it’ll get sorted out, but for now, I have no option but to remain silent.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, McIntosh’s words poured out in rapid succession.
“Bob, I want you to personally take Parker down to human resources. His police ID is to be confiscated and all of his passcodes and logins must be changed or terminated.” Turning to Parker, he said, “You are on unpaid leave and under house arrest effective immediately.”
Parker started to protest.
“But, you heard . . .”
“I know what I heard,” interrupted McIntosh abruptly. “But, unless someone at MI6, or whoever the hell it is you work for, is willing to vouch for you, you shall be charged with unlawful disclosure of confidential information.”
There was a knock at the door, and Bob stood to get it while McIntosh continued.
“It’s one thing to have you spying on your own colleagues, but it’s quite another thing for you to refuse to talk to us when you get busted. Adam, I hope you’re clean, but I can’t take any chances.”
Bob cleared his throat, and McIntosh turned towards the door.
“Sir, someone has called with information on a murder.”
“Damn it, Bob. We’re busy here. Have homicide handle it.”
“Apparently, the caller is refusing to talk to anyone but you. It’s about the O’Brien case. He said he’d call back in five minutes.”
“Fine, we’re done here anyway.”
CHAPTER
68
I
STANBUL
Four men playing a game of cards in the village teahouse watched a white TurkTelekom van circle the square and then park at the front gate of a five-storey apartment building directly across from them. Everyone else would have been watching too, but the haze of cigarette smoke and the dirty windows made it impossible for anyone not sitting at the front window to see anything outside. A man wearing a technician’s uniform stepped out of the van, carrying a large toolbox, and pushed the button on the heavy iron gate.
A few minutes later, the apartment custodian, a thin, dirty man wearing a skullcap, crossed the tiny yard and opened the gate. In a voice calculated to communicate boredom and haste at the same time, the clean-cut technician said, “There’s a problem with the ADSL connection in apartment fifteen on the fourth floor.”
“That’s the first I’ve heard about it,” responded the custodian cautiously. “No one’s home until six-thirty tonight, maybe later.”
“Then we won’t be bothering anyone,” the technician replied flatly as he pushed past the man and headed for the apartment entrance. “Come on,” he ordered over his shoulder. “I’ll need you to open the door.”
><><><
Yusuf looked at Murat across the table in the cramped temporary office they had been assigned at the Istanbul Police Intelligence Bureau. His friend wasn’t smiling. When he spoke, it was in a whisper strangled by gritted teeth.
“You’re telling me that after the exchange we let the American walk even though he’s wanted by Interpol? Why in the world aren’t we bringing him in?”
“Because he hasn’t done anything. He’s being framed.”
“Framed? And, just how do you know this?”
“I have a reliable source.”
“Well, I want to know who the source is.”
Murat was raising his voice. Yusuf motioned with his hand for him to keep it down as he asked himself the question he had been contemplating all day.
How much danger will Murat be in if I tell him everything?
The question answered itself in his mind immediately. He looked down at the table, then over at the wall and drummed his fingers nervously.
“An old friend. That’s all I can say.”
Murat shook his head slowly.
“Forget it. I’m not going near this. I’m not sticking my neck out for a damned American.”
“Look, all I’m asking you to do is turn a blind eye. I told you the organization we are targeting was behind the murder of two professors in London—one American, the other Turkish. I’m acting on the Interpol notice issued for them kidnapping this man’s family. The only reason the American came to Istanbul was to get his family back.”
“So, what were they kidnapped for? Is he being wanted because he broke the law to gain their freedom?”
“I think it’s better if we not go into that.”
Murat closed his eyes and turned his face away. Images of operations he and Yusuf had been involved with flashed before his mind. He had been to hell and back several times with Yusuf. They didn’t make men like Yusuf anymore, which made it that much harder to say what he had to say.
“Captain, you know that I would follow you into a hail of automatic machine gun fire. But, I’m not going to risk my career doing something that violates my oath to uphold the law, especially when you give me no facts. You’re asking for blind trust.”
“That doesn’t sound very different from following me into withering crossfire.”
Yusuf smiled in an attempt to allay his friend’s concern. Murat wanted to return the smile to lighten the atmosphere but couldn’t.
“Sir, that would be loyalty and affection, not trust. I wouldn’t trust you to save me from the bullets, I’d just be willing to take mine fighting beside you.”
“So, you don’t trust me?” asked Yusuf quietly.
“I think I’m the one who should be asking that question,” said Murat fiercely. “You’ve never kept anything from me before. Why start now?”
“To protect you,” Yusuf said simply, unapologetically.
“Protect me? From whom?”
“Listen Murat, if you don’t want to do it, I’ll lead the operation myself and see if Bülent can run interference here to give us eyes in the field. It’s imperative that no one outside of our team know about this operation.”
“Damn it, Yusuf! I’m not asking to be sent home. You don’t have to tell me all the details but give me something.”
Yusuf brought his hands together so that his fingers interlocked. Murat had seen his friend do this many times. It was a sign he was deliberating something particularly weighty. He didn’t take long to make up his mind though.
“What if I were to tell you that Fatih Gülben’s organization was the group responsible for kidnapping the American’s family? Would that be enough?”
Murat stared at his boss in disbelief. Then he pushed back from the table, stood up and started pacing the tiny office.
“Enough? Enough to scare the shit out of me!”
“So, you’re in then?”
“I understand why you didn’t want to say anything. Forget losing our jobs, this could get us killed . . . Yusuf, this isn’t some marginalized radical like Bekir Kaya or Hizbullah. This is a man held in the highest esteem by millions of our countrymen. He’s viewed as a saint. His sphere of influence reaches all the way to the White House. Bekir has guns. I can face guns. That is what we were trained for. But this man commands an army numbering in the millions. He has schools and training centers scattered across the globe with commercial interests that stretch from Kyrgyzstan to London. He has infiltrated the Police Academy, the Police Intelligence Bureau Headquarters, and,” he lowered his voice, “We both know he has people in Counter-Terrorism . . .”